Almost five years ago, President Bush sat grasping the hand of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al Maliki, flashbulbs from an army of photographers illuminating
their smiling, faintly strained faces. As we know now, the agreement they had
just signed
and were shaking upon turned out to be a very public parting of ways.

For Washington, which wanted to keep troops in the country, but was spurned
by Maliki and an Iraqi parliament that preferred to go it alone rather than
give the US military continued legal immunity, breaking up has been quite easy
to do. In the indomitable words of rapper Gang Starr, "you’re
my ex-girl cuz I’m on with the next girl," and Iraq is being treated thusly.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, best be paying attention. He stands on
the cusp of a similar agreement
with the United States over the status of its forces there after 2014. Again,
the issue of immunity is at hand, and rather than decide it himself, he has
put the question to a loya
jirga, a grand council of the country’s elders, before signing the pact.
Things are pretty bad already, but observers fear a worse implosion of Afghanistan’s
security situation if the Americans abruptly pull up stakes and leave altogether.

Already, the American people could care less – they’re one foot out the door.
They have written Afghanistan off – just as they did with
Iraq – as a mistake.
So if what’s happening in Iraq is any indication of times to come, a bitter
divorce, felt mostly by the neediest of Afghans, is inevitable.

Twice Bitten

Violence has escalated in Iraq at a rate not seen since 2008 when the final
Strategic Framework and Security Agreement between Bush and Maliki was signed.
Nearly 6,000 Iraqis
were killed since the beginning of the year, 490
in October, as of Sunday. Sectarian violence on both sides is washing over
Iraqi towns and cities like an epidemic, including the
North, where Kurdistan had once been known as the safest place in Iraq.

Washington, which for years claimed the invasion, in part, was to foster a
democratic ally in the region, has been curiously silent on why this is happening
and what it means for Iraq, with much of the mainstream news following suit.

Some might call it "moving on," or "closure." Others may
call it desertion.

One need go no further than the Oct. 9 State Department press
briefing, a regular affair in which the designated spokesperson fields questions
as if hitting (or missing) one pitch after another in a batting cage. At one
point, an international reporter attempts to throw a curve ball to spokeswoman
Marie Harf on a country Foggy Bottom has already torn out of its Little Black
Book:

QUESTION: Iraq?

MS. HARF: Uh-huh.

QUESTION: The UN reports that 6,000 Iraqis have died since the beginning
of the year, there has been a tremendous spike in sectarian violence, incursions
by al-Qaida, almost collapse of the central government. Yet Iraq really seems
to be not on your radar screen. Can you explain to us why this lack of attention
to what’s going on in Iraq on your part?

MS. HARF: Well … there are, like, three or four things that you just
said that I would take issue with factually, so let me walk through some of
them.

Harf proceeds to explain to the obviously misinformed foreign newsman that
the "violence" he speaks of is "terrorist violence." So
that makes it, what, not as urgent?

"It’s not the kind of sectarian violence we saw during the most violent
years of the Iraq war. So it really is violence perpetrated by extremists, and
much of it is a outflow of the situation in Syria," Harf says (translation:
it’s not our problem anymore). When asked if the US is taking any "special
measures to sort of help Iraq in this really difficult time," she says,
"well, we have an ongoing dialogue with them on the fight against terrorism.
We’ve said we will continue to support them in the best way we think is possible."

A boy surveys a the aftermath of a bombing in Baghdad in June

At a great distance, no doubt. But let’s take this hoo-hah one swing at a time.
Washington loves, at least for public consumption, to pretend that "terrorism"
simply occurs in a vacuum, completely ignoring the circumstances feeding into
it (admitting that Iraq is in the midst of what Iraqi-American and University
of Maryland professor Adil Shamoo calls a sectarian "civil
war," would force the US to acknowledge that it had a part to play
in it, which Washington is loathe to do.)

Much of violence against the Shia in Iraq has been perpetrated by Al
Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) a.k.a. the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL),
and other Sunni extremists who are taking advantage of sectarian tensions that
already exist there. Meanwhile, there seems to be no attention paid to the Shia
militia problem in key cities like Basra, in which the sectarian cleansing of
Sunnis that the US helped Maliki pursue during the war has clearly not ended.
From the Al
Monitornewspaper in late September:

Sectarian displacement carried out by armed
militias to empty large regions of Basra from its native residents
is escalating amid an eerie silence from Basra authorities and the federal government.
Forced displacements, through threats, have targeted the al-Zubair District
in particular and other regions in Abu al-Khaseeb. …

The sources explained that sectarian
killing and cleansing in Basra had been preceded with notices that
had been hung on the doors of Sunni mosques calling on Sunnis to leave the city
within one week or face death. The historical district of al-Zubair, home for
Sunnis for centuries, no longer has Sunnis living in it. Its residents moved
to Gulf countries following death threats from militias, the sources clarified.

There is instability everywhere, and much of it stemming from, or thriving
on, political strife caused in part by the Shia-dominated Maliki government
itself, which the Sunnis have been protesting
against en masse for basic rights and services since the beginning of
the Arab Spring in 2011. While the mainstream western media has largely stopped
covering the protests, rallies such as the one our Antiwar.com source
Donna Mulhearn
reported last spring in Fallujah, are regular events.

Sunnis protest against Maliki Government in Fallujah

Maliki would prefer to blame the "terrorism" on radical Sunnis coming
across the border from Syria. Of course he is not entirely wrong, the ISIL is
now operating in Syria. But like the US, Maliki oversimplifies to his benefit,
as though his own policies have nothing to do whatsoever with the increased
instability of his country. Here’s what he had to say when confronted with the
security issue in a recent Al
Monitor Q & A:

Our forces are confronting these criminals and are involved in an all-out
war with them. We are confident that we can defeat and eliminate them. There
are many factors that have contributed to this increase in terrorist acts, the
most important of which is the sectarian tension in the region that is directly
related to the developments in the Syrian crisis and its repercussions on the
Iraqi arena.

First of all, if Maliki’s government forces – paid for and trained by the US
military – are in an "all-out war" with the terrorists, the terrorists
are clearly winning. Second, Maliki, a supporter of the Assad regime, along
with Iran, would like nothing better than to shift the focus of the conversation
to the "extremists, terrorists and sectarians" among the anti-Assad
rebels just over the border. But when asked about the Shia militia killings
in Basra, Maliki acknowledged their presence, but conveniently adds, "there
is a clear correlation between these groups and terrorist groups and they strengthen
each other." Again, the "terrorist" label.

Maliki uses it, like American officials often do, as a sort of incantation
to ward off the complex, political roots of the violence, as well as speculation
that perhaps it might be related, not to "the wider, regional conflict,"
but to his own bad leadership, which has been called corrupt, authoritarian
and broadly incompetent in terms of solving crises and providing basic services
to the most needy of his people. The overall parliamentary politics of Iraq
is a hot mess, too, much of it seeded in unresolved constitutional issues and
a broken
political process dating back to the war. But there seems to be no place
in the State Department briefing room for such comprehensive talk. It’s just
easier to blame "terrorism" and not the guy we helped to install in
the seat in 2006.

"Counterterrorism" is probably the only thing of substance Maliki
will be talking to US officials about during his reported trip to Washington
at the end of the month. It will be the first such meeting since he met with
Secretary of State John Kerry in March. At that meeting of the minds, the main
topic of conversation was Syria. The US wanted Maliki to stop allowing Iranian
over-flights with arms for Assad to Syria. Maliki
reportedly resisted. Now, Maliki is supporting a
plan that would spur negotiations in Syria without foreign intervention.

The State department won’t even acknowledge that Maliki is coming to Washington
this month, yet early reports suggest there will be discussions over "the
security situation in Iraq, the Syrian crisis and the issues related to the
Strategic Framework agreement." No word on whether the president will meet
with Maliki, which would be their first one-on-one since 2011.

Not our problem anymore

To be fair, there is not much the US can do now but talk anyway, and the State
Department insists they are doing a lot of it as part of the Strategic Framework
Agreement (though to be frank, their diplomatic efforts seem as empty
as the $730 million US fortress embassy sitting in Baghdad
right now).

The Strategic Framework and Security Agreement took all US troops out, but
it needn’t have taken our full attention away from helping to rebuild what we
broke. That was our commitment, like it or not.

Adil Shamoo doesn’t necessarily agree that "we’ve completely washed our
hands" of Iraq, as American aid (albeit greatly
reduced) continues to help fund civil projects, hospitals and schools there.
Recently, the U.S. announced it would be acting on a request
from the Iraqis for a $2.6 billion air defense system and F-16 fighter jets
to "to curb the radicalization of young Iraqis and other spillover effects
from the Syrian conflict."

Shamoo believes continued American "influence" has indeed neutralized
any serious threat to neighbor Israel and kept Iran at bay, to a certain extent.
But that only speaks to US interests, what of the Iraqi people? Are they better
off now than before the war?

“Not even close. Iraq has been taken back 30 years at a minimum. I said that
in front of a dinner filled with Iraqis. They said no, it’s been more like 300
years. Iraq has been destroyed. It has been destroyed," said Shamoo.

"The one area I know well is science, technology and medicine. It is like
in the 1950’s – I’m not kidding you. It’s just devastated.”

While perversely, the US might be sending Iraq a message that "you don’t
know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone," we’re sure, in the end, the Iraqis
prefer to be going their separate ways. No doubt they wish, too, amid the daily
bombings killing Sunni and Shia alike, that they’d never crossed paths with
us in the first place.

USG divided Korean nation, they destroyed Vietnam and people there still paying the price for that agent orange, they had wars in South America, in Asia and Middle East and orchestrated cop de Etta's all over the world, if Washington wanted to talk about all that crimes, the courts all over the USA need to put down all other files and start prosecuting the war criminal starting with Henry Kissinger and up to present USG, which clarifies the argument regarding why Washington is silence about Iraq.

If the purpose of the Iraq war was to destroy the state of Iraq as a significant and relatively independent force in the region, then it has been a complete success. And if it has "neutralized any serious threat to neighbor Israel," then no more needs to be said.

As Iraqis die from bombings, lack of medical attention, and unclean water supplies and as the turmoil and misery reaches a crescendo….Netanyahu smiles. Thanks to American politicians, who are bought and paid for or stand in fear of the Israeli lobby., the plan to destabilize and undermine Arab and Persian nations, from Iraq to Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine is a complete success, for the time being.

[…] Violence has escalated in Iraq at a rate not seen since 2008 when the final Strategic Framework and Security Agreement between Bush and Maliki was signed. Nearly 6,000 Iraqis were killed since the beginning of the year, 490 in October, as of Sunday. Sectarian violence on both sides is washing over Iraqi towns and cities like an epidemic, including the North, where Kurdistan had once been known as the safest place in Iraq. Washington, which for years claimed the invasion, in part, was to foster a democratic ally in the region, has been curiously silent on why this is happening and what it means for Iraq, with much of the mainstream news following suit. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2013/10/14/washingtons-silence-on-iraq/#.Ul05wyRHDVA.email […]

Excellent update on a tragic situation. And to think that Iraq was ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, home of the patriarch Abraham. The devil must be dancing on the graves of the many fallen there over the past 30 years. I pray for the suffering people, and wish them Eid Mubarak,

[…] B. Vlahos noted some of Harf’s issues from that press briefing in a column entitled ”Washington’s Silence On Iraq” (Antiwar.com). A number of people felt the need to weigh in on that — to complain […]

[…] B. Vlahos noted some of Harf’s issues from that press briefing in a column entitled ”Washington’s Silence On Iraq” (Antiwar.com). A number of people felt the need to weigh in on that — to complain […]

[…] B. Vlahos noted some of Harf’s issues from that press briefing in a column entitled ”Washington’s Silence On Iraq” (Antiwar.com). A number of people felt the need to weigh in on that — to complain […]

Let us not forget that Sunni extremism has been on the increase not just in Iraq, but all over the region. I do not think that it is a homegrown sectarianism at the root of the problem — even though it is part of it. Saudi sponsored, financed and directed Salafi movements are sprouting all over the region like mushrooms after rain. In Egypt, let us not forget, Salafis have staged protests that were then excuse for a military coup. And surprise , surprise — Salafi general Al-Sisi took over. In Iraq, it is payback time for SOFA, so Salafi customary blood baths are nothing to shock us. Syria is a prime example of their handiwork. Salafis are again being imported into Balkans region, and there is going to be trouble.
Salafis seem to be the groud forces of the new american world order. Poor, dumb, ready to die for religion, loyal only to Mecca no natonal governments — perfect idiots. Our version of the army of the clones.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer, is a longtime
political reporter for FoxNews.com and
a contributing editor at The American Conservative.
She is also a Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine. Her Twitter account is @KelleyBVlahos.